Long Term Success In Real Estate Comes From Consistency Not Shortcuts - #73 Anja Plowright

“Real estate hacks” sound tempting right up until you’re the one holding a buyer’s stress, a seller’s memories, and a decision that can’t be undone. I sit down with East Bay powerhouse Anja Plowright to unpack what actually builds a durable real estate career in Berkeley, Oakland, and beyond: process consistency, grounded communication, and the kind of personal growth that makes clients feel safe when everything feels chaotic.

We talk about how the business has evolved from paper disclosures and rigid MLS limits to a world where agents are expected to be writers, analysts, marketers, and creators. Anja shares why she stays intentionally old-fashioned in the ways that matter most: one-on-one relationships, intuition about spaces, and a calm, organized presence that lowers client anxiety. If you’re a newer agent, her advice is direct and practical: know yourself, set boundaries, and build systems you can repeat under pressure.

We also go deep on AI in real estate, why it’s not the threat people assume, and how it can help if you keep the human edge front and center. Then we get tactical on offers from the listing side: the line between overcommunication and undercommunication, how to signal confidence without creating red flags, and why a clean, complete offer package is still a competitive advantage. To wrap, we touch the March 2026 East Bay real estate market, including interest rates, low inventory, and lifestyle-driven demand.

If this conversation helped you think more clearly about your work or your next move, subscribe, share it with a friend in real estate, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Anja Plowright is a licensed CA REALTOR® DRE#01351797

Declan Spring is a licensed CA REALTOR® DRE#01398898

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Declan 0:00

This is Declan Spring, and welcome to the Mostly Real Estate Podcast. Today on the podcast, I'm joined by Anya Plowright. Anya is a 25-year veteran of the East Bay real estate market and co-founder of one of the top performing teams in Berkeley and Oakland and the East Bay, alongside Colette Ford. She built what's now known as Anya Co., a group that's sold more than 750 homes and consistently ranks in the top 1% locally. Not nationally, but locally, which is harder than nationally. Now, I'll say this up front. When I did try to dig into some of the awards and accolades early in the conversation, Anya very quickly pushes back. And I think that tells you something important about how she sees herself in her work. It's not about trophies, it's about process consistency, professional and personal growth. I really enjoyed this conversation so much, and I really hope you enjoy it too. Okay, so now here's my conversation with Anya Plowright. Enjoy. It's my absolute pleasure to be here with Anya Plowright. Thank you, Declan. At the Grub Company offices of 3070 Claremont. And I've never been to this office, only the Montclair office. This is really nice.

Anja 1:32

I'm just like very aesthetically oriented, and if my surroundings are appealing, I am much more inspired to do good work.

Starting From Scratch In Real Estate

Declan 1:40

Well, that shows in your listings, by the way. So you're just stating the obvious there. For those who don't know your name immediately on your plow right, they they're obviously not in real estate very long because Okay, stop. Well, no.

Anja 1:54

It's enough. To be honest with you, Declan, it's been a like a super steady growth for the last 25 years. I mean, I started out, I think I made like $6,000 in my first year.

Declan 2:06

Yeah.

Anja 2:06

And uh maybe in my second year I made $16,000. And you know, I would hold open listings uh for the 20th time that hadn't been selling on rainy days in winter. And um little by little would start seeing the same people, and one of those people eventually bought a house for me. Then I got to sell their house, and one thing eventually led to one another. But as I always tell new people coming into the business, that you know, for the first 10 years in real estate, at least that's how it was with me, you have to really hit the pavement and take every phone call and pursue every every lead. Um, and eventually business starts coming to you. Yeah, but it took a number of years for that to happen where I could sit back and the phone would actually ring for me instead of the other way around.

Moving Countries And Finding The East Bay

Declan 2:59

After all of your hard work, you're a top producer in the East Bay of a fairly serious order of magnitude, right? So that's just the way it is. Let's go all the way back. Let's talk about where you were raised. You've got an accent. People probably wonder where's on you from?

Anja 3:14

Yeah, I was uh 12 when I came to the States for the first time. I was born in Germany. I still have my German passport, by the way, have not given that up. And um ended up going to college and graduate school in the States, um, but was hired by a German company and moved back in my mid-20s.

Declan 3:33

Oh, really?

Anja 3:34

Uh and worked there, got married, had kids, and um yeah, made made a career for myself in a way in Germany. Really? Uh but as a child I moved around every couple of years. Um, but eventually we landed in Berkeley. I thought real estate was really fun because of all of my moves in my life. I had a good sense of space and architecture and a lot of interest in it.

Declan 3:59

Yeah.

Anja 4:00

And um initially, because I did not know the Bay Area, I sat down with a different realtor in their car every day. Okay. Uh for about a month. Okay. One in Marin, one in San Francisco, one in the South Bay, and one in the East Bay.

Declan 4:14

Really?

Anja 4:14

Just to kind of get a sense for what areas I thought we would would want to live in.

Declan 4:20

Yes.

Anja 4:21

And um Colette, who eventually became my business partner in real estate, was my East Bay realtor.

Declan 4:27

Colette Ford.

Anja 4:28

And um, and I quickly realized that the East Bay resonated more with me and with our family than any other area.

Declan 4:36

Wow. What year was that?

Anja 4:37

That was in '99. Oh, okay.

Declan 4:39

So you met Colette in ninety nine.

Anja 4:40

That was in '99, and um, we ended up choosing and getting the house that that I still live in.

Declan 4:47

Really.

Anja 4:48

And when it came time for me to go back to work, Colette basically took me aside and said, don't take a job and just come work with me.

Declan 4:59

Really?

Anja 5:00

And um I tell this story a lot, so m some people may have heard it, but but I was like, I can't become a realtor. Like, I have an MBA. What are my friends gonna say about me? And um, but of course, I really didn't have any friends here yet, and no reputation to uphold. And I ditched my attitude and took classes and immediately um entered the field, and I have never looked back. It's been like the greatest decision I've made.

Teams And Systems That Scale

Declan 5:30

Amazing. Amazing.

Anja 5:31

Um and Colette and I were business partners and still are since the year 2000. Really were were one of the first teams in the business. Not the first team, but one of the first teams in the business. Yeah. You know, it was not like an easy, fast um fly-by-night thing. Um but the last, I would say the last six or seven years uh have really been the strongest because you know, once you build a reputation and age and time is on your side when you enter this business, yeah. Um and you do a good job and you have k good systems and habits in place, which is kind of like my highest preaching in the business in terms of what creates success. I think I think if you consistently produce and uh deliver uh calmly and uh in an organized fashion, at least one that appears to be organized to your clients, I think you can you can you can grow your business. You can do quite well.

Declan 6:35

You just have to work hard. Well, let's really talk about this a little bit more. So for newer licensees, you know, the the world moves so fast now, there's so much information. And I I just want to tell people listening that before I turned on the microphone, this was kind of revealing, actually. I was telling you that err, you know, everything is just cyclical, nothing is new, and nowadays there's just new names for old things, and nowadays it's called house hack. And you said, Oh, I hate the word hack.

Anja 7:07

I know it's one of my least favorite words. Right. It's so stupid. Right.

Declan 7:12

Because because why?

Anja 7:13

Because Well, it's it's just it suggests there's like a fast pass to something that most people really have to work at, and it's like some sort of gimmick. Yeah, you know, that I and and and I hate gimmicks and I hate yeah, I hate easy, quick, and dirty sort of approaches to things that don't seem sincere.

Declan 7:34

Let's yeah, I I think there's a lot of people selling a lot of snake oil on social media these days, and also there's the illusion of a faster way to do it, which is often, you know, comes with three easy installments of 1999. You know what I mean? So 100%, exactly. That's why. Yeah. You got licensed twend 2000, right?

Tech Changes And What Still Works

Anja 7:54

In the year 2000.

Declan 7:55

Yeah. What was it like? What was a week in the life like back then? Because we had cell phones, but we didn't have a lot of the other things. Like, what are the differences and and have things really changed, or do you still generally run your business in more or less fundamentally the same strategy, but maybe some newer tactics?

Anja 8:13

I mean, we went through all the iterations of our smartphones, you know, um, from the flip phone to the BlackBerry.

Declan 8:21

Yeah.

Anja 8:21

Um, so I would say what newer agents are missing are are some of those like tedious baby steps into technology. We filled a lot of our ad requests out by hand. Yeah. I once drew my own house drawing because we had to put something on the market quickly and and and I like you know did the best I can with my own drawing.

Declan 8:48

Really?

Anja 8:48

I mean, so people um just didn't have the technology and the tools, and this is really obvious. I think real estate, in a way, even though it's gotten so fast-paced and so crazy, but what's great about it is that there are so many more options um for today's agent than there were in the past. And the, I mean, the traditional forms of relating to one another and making phone calls and visits and writing cards, all of those things are still important and are probably still at the core of why we are successful. Okay. But if you're incredibly shy and never want to leave your house, there's a space for you in real estate today.

Declan 9:31

Okay.

Anja 9:31

Because there's Zoom and and and there's, you know, a lot of a lot of ways to work remotely. Um, if you want to work out of your geographical area, there's room for you because agents are now working all over the county, all over the state sometimes. People I work with, there's a contingent of really successful agents who travel all over the Greater Bay Area. That didn't used to be the case. So, in a way, this business has always been one way you could be yourself and and and find other people who were like you and who wanted to work with you, but even more than ever, I think it can cater to your personal style of doing business. That said, I'm kind of old-fashioned in the way I do business.

Declan 10:17

Okay.

Anja 10:17

Which is it I'm very like one-on-one, hands-on, personal, genuine, you know, I evaluate things from a level of energy and intuition as much as I do from an analysis standpoint. Right. So I have sort of old-fashioned approaches to things. If if a house has a good feeling or a bad feeling, I mean, there's lots of things you sort of intuitively know but can't completely put your finger on. And I I I put a lot of emphasis on that.

Declan 10:48

Yeah.

Anja 10:48

Which is has nothing to do with technology. That's true. But I think ultimately old-fashioned values still play a big role.

Declan 10:56

Yeah. I mean, I look back on the MLS, you know, you know, when you pull up uh an address and and you know, you see it was listed in the 90s or late 90s or 2000s, and and the the amount of space we were given for marketing text was there was nothing there. It's like three bedrooms, bathroom, garage, buy it now.

Anja 11:16

I think we're called to much greater talent than we were in the past. Right. I mean, it was it's what you're describing, that sort of constraint where every little square was one letter, and you had to literally fill just the right number of letters into the squares, or your text would get cut off in the ad or in the MLS.

Declan 11:35

Yes.

Anja 11:35

I mean, now we have to be great writers. We have to be uh like absolute statistical geniuses, you know, with with with our approaches to pricing and days on market and um the probability of what we can eventually get for it. We have to be movie stars, we have to be podcasters, content creators. You know, we we have to be historians, we have to be artists, yes, we have to appeal to all the key buzzwords that AI is gonna pick up, and we have to somehow insert ourselves into one of them. I mean, think about how expensive that is. And as somebody who is constantly concerned with her personal growth, that's really fun. You can expand all of your other interests into real estate. Yes. And that didn't used to be the case. I know I totally with those 13 letters, you know, 13 boxes that you had to fulfill. So I think real estate's become more interesting, it's become less predictable. Real estate agents have become much more varied in how they show themselves off. Uh-huh. Um, I mean, it used to be sort of, I would make fun of this when I first got into the business, these groups of agents would drive around on broker tour, which was a much bigger deal than it is today. It was much bigger. Everybody went to broker tour. But literally, like their the four doors of the car would like open in this synchronized manner. Yeah. People would march out of the car and march through the house and march back in, and it was like this showdown of different groups of agents.

Declan 13:08

Yes.

Anja 13:08

And it, you know, it just was like oozing with power and charisma on a personal level. Um, and it was it was like theatrical. Um now it's become a little bit more personal in the theater. Okay. And people express themselves a little more through whatever their various Instagrams and videos. And, you know, I don't love doing that for myself, but there's people who are incredibly good at it. I don't emulate being that person, but I'm happy to say that you don't have to be.

Declan 13:45

I think you're right. You know, at the end of the day, I I feel like I enjoy the the opportunities for being a creative person. I'm fairly creative. I went to art school. Me too. Right. Okay. So I I look back just 10 years ago, and I think nowadays, uh, even just over the past 10 years, the the the level of creativity, like I can really scratch my creative itch in many ways. In just in my career, I can bring in, as you said, my passions, hobbies, and and all of that kind of thing into the career, and things dovetail nicely, like this podcast, for example.

Anja 14:20

It's amazing that you're doing that, you know. You're you're creating a whole channel for yourself.

Declan 14:25

It's right, and and who would have known to do that back then? And now everyone can create their own channel, either on YouTube or an audio, or or they can build a sub stack. So so it's definitely a very creative space. Uh, and and uh I like that, but I love your description of broker tour back in the day. Because really, where else you couldn't you couldn't see houses, uh, you couldn't, there weren't 60 photographs online and videos and drone and all of that. You couldn't really determine the aesthetics of qualities, there weren't disclosure I.O. packets. I mean, nowadays we can fairly quickly take a look at at a good website, you know, from a from a good agent like yourself. We can download disclosures. We already have the measure of the house before we get there.

Anja 15:12

But when you began in the year 2000, if you didn't go on broker tour like you were, I mean, there was a lot more stupid stuff, like insultingly stupid stuff that we had to do. Make copies and hand sign things and drive to another agent's office and pick up disclosures like that were printed and that were thick and wasted a lot of paper. Yes. And and so much of what was going to lead to success at the time was really, really basic stuff. Oh, yeah. And so I just think I think the world of real estate has gotten so much more interesting because we've eliminated some of the tedious activities.

Declan 15:53

Right.

Anja 15:54

Um, and uh have learned to outsource many other things.

Declan 15:58

Right.

Anja 15:58

Uh to keep our mind focused on the things that really are sharp and interesting and deep challenging.

Declan 16:05

Yes. Um do you think we're one of those fortunate professions, given you know the rapid increase and uh of AI and it its ability to even, you know, uh begin to code itself and all of this kind of thing? Um do you think we're one of the fortunate professions in that we can we can really benefit from AI while not feeling threatened that our relevance is gonna just become obscured?

Anja 16:33

To me, AI is no threat. I don't think it's gonna threaten our position. I do think it's gonna um change the market and change our role in a big way. Yeah. If we're not staying on top of it and using our intelligence and our differentiating factor as humans.

Declan 16:52

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. But you're kind of an AI optimist, generally.

Anja 16:56

I am totally an AI optimist. I mean, I know terrible things are going to happen, but it I don't think we can deny it. Um I love how quickly I can access information and how much I can learn about things.

Declan 17:07

I love that.

Anja 17:08

And I'm constantly on Chat GPT asking it questions about like everyday things. I frankly have personally gained a lot from working with it.

Declan 17:18

Yeah, I I I enjoy it too. It's my co-pilot in many ways, um, and it hallucinates and apologizes for grossly incompetent errors.

Anja 17:28

It's great. Yeah, and I'm I've learned I'm kind of a better person for it. Right. It makes me uh it tempers me a little bit uh because I see my own defensiveness and my own emotional component sometimes in a way that it works itself out to be negative in a transaction, and if I can temper that down with a little help, it's actually really uh productive for the result. Um I think the human touch for purchase, that's as we all know, one of the most important purchases or sales in our clients' lives, yeah, has to be accompanied by by a person. I mean, I myself hate buying anything from someone I don't know. Like I'm talking even about a car or a bicycle or and there's such a proliferation of potential buyers and clients coming to us via AI that it often creates this sense of of not knowing what's real and what's not real, yeah. Which is extremely confusing and unsettling to people, right? Um, I think in our industry. And it's such a constant like buzz, background and foreground buzz of activity and uncertainty about what we should pursue and what we shouldn't. I mean, you we all get the get the requests that uh have us link to WhatsApp or Zoom calls, and they're there's such a threat of losing our identity, and I think that is actually very anxiety-producing.

Declan 19:00

Um would you have any fundamental change in how you tell a newer licensee, you know, how to get their career off the ground? If they just say they just want to be a local agent here, they're not looking for some, you know, some other uh peculiar kind of niche thing. But if they just want to get their career off the ground as a local agent and you strip away all the bells and whistles, do you think fundamentally the same practices would apply 20 years today as they did 20 years ago?

Anja 19:31

I think you have to know yourself, you have to know how you are, yeah. Have a sense of what what how you see yourself in the business and in the world, that is. I mean, I think this applies to pretty much any anybody who's starting out in a career. It's like know your boundaries, know what you want, yeah, and then be have an optimistic uh uh approach to your work.

Declan 19:57

Yes.

Anja 19:58

Uh a good mindset, and start to put systems and practices into place that are consistently applied so that people who work with you, I mean, they're in such turmoil in their life when they're moving, when they're buying, or when they're selling. I I actually have recently um described my job to somebody as I am the CEO of the future. Because I think, especially for buyers, you're talking about their future.

Declan 20:30

Okay.

AI Optimism And The Human Edge

Anja 20:30

You're managing their future, you're managing their dreams, you're managing how they see themselves in their next step in life. So you you have to sort of tune into that. If you're selling a house, oftentimes people are moving into a next phase as well, but you're dealing much more with people's past. So the difference between those two types of real estate are really that you're one is managing more someone's future and one is helping somebody say goodbye to their past. Yes. Yeah, so I I would say if you develop a sense of who you are, layered with the habits and the systems that that can be consistently executed again and again. I think what it leads to is that you're giving constant reassurance to your clients who are on both sides of the selling and the buying in a stressed out, anxious space. And what they want to do is they want to meet with somebody who can be reassuring, who who can uh systematically and and and consistently behave in such a way that it lowers their anxiety around this very stressful event that they're anticipating, which they know nothing about. By knowing yourself and by having these systems in place, people begin to relax. And once they relax, And start to trust you.

Declan 22:02

Yes.

Anja 22:02

They work with you and that collaboration, I want to say energetically translates to success. Okay. Buyers can sense when a seller is anxious and not ready to let go of a house when they're not trusting the process. Yeah. Um sellers can sense if you're not fully committed or or working together with them if you don't like them. You have to you have to align yourself with your either your buyers or your sellers in a way that they lock arms with you, symbolically speaking, and walk in the same direction. Because that all of that ultimately translates to a successful transaction. I do attribute a lot of importance to sort of that the mindset of the individuals behind it. The partnership, the collaboration ultimately turns into something positive if it's done well.

Declan 23:02

Be yourself, know who you are. Did you always know yourself?

Anja 23:06

Or absolutely not. Okay. Um as it does for anybody who continues growing, hopefully. Yeah. And certainly the older I get, oh my God, I'm so glad I'm not in my 20s or 30s or 40s anymore. But um the more, the more I'm like, take me as I am. I yes, yeah, sure, I'm not perfect. There's lots, lots of idiosyncrasies, but but it's also kind of that's the fun part that life is made of and and the characters that are made of. So I I don't I'm no longer as apologetic and as insecure and as confused about all of that as I used to be. And yeah. I thoroughly enjoy this stage of my life and my career.

Declan 23:54

Yes.

Advice For Newer Licensees

Anja 23:54

Because of it. It's nice. But I think any anybody who's growth-oriented will have encountered those developments in in many careers. They should. But this career does allow you to be a little more free with your with your style and your your inclinations.

Declan 24:12

Yeah.

Anja 24:12

And it enforces a lot of self-reflection. It does. More self-reflection than other jobs. And I'm glad about it. Some of my most painful times in my personal life propelled my business like nothing else would have done. I was not gonna let myself be sad and depressed and and and and stomped into the ground. And I literally like essentially said, I'm I'm going for it. And and the my hardest personal times propelled me into like strength I probably wouldn't have had if it hadn't hadn't been for that.

Declan 24:54

Okay, can I leave that in the podcast though? Because here's the thing is I think it's important for people to know. That you know, that's there's that story of the guy, you know, he had his he was looking for gold. He spent three months just pickaxe, pickaxe.

Anja 25:09

Yeah.

Declan 25:09

And and he was an inch away, but he gave up. And the next guy in just, you know, one one flick of the pickaxe, and he found the gold. It's like, I think it's important for people to know.

Anja 25:19

No, I'm I'm I'm uh yeah, I'm okay with that. I would say it it wasn't until I was so wretchedly sad that that I was I stopped really catering to other people and began to cater to myself. Okay. I I think that is actually honestly what propelled that was the real start of my business.

Declan 25:46

Okay.

Anja 25:46

I would say if you say what makes me successful today, it's that that I really came to a point where I I had to completely focus on the future and really, really make a go for it. Not in this violent, like elbowing anybody out of the way type of way, but in really advocating for myself. Okay, thank you for sharing my well, thank you for listening.

Declan 26:11

The people need to hear that from you.

Anja 26:14

Okay.

Declan 26:15

Because we never know, right? The next the next person who will be an Anya Plow right, who will be not only, you know, successful in terms of numbers and all of that stuff, but I'm talking the next person listening to this who might be successful in their own way, not materially, but who can find themselves, you know, they need to hear that you gotta keep pushing. And it's often at those hardest and bleakest hours of your day that the growth happens, right? You know, it happens in those dark moments occasionally. Let's so when I first when I first met you, I mean, I when I first became aware of who you were, um, you know, I was initially like a lot of um you were licensees, I was uh I was nervous when I first saw you, I didn't want to introduce myself because I I just felt, you know, that you were so many levels uh uh uh above me. And so so to understand how how you got there and that it's just a deeply human experience, I think is just really valuable, and I really just appreciate you sharing it.

Anja 27:29

So well, you know, it's really like painful for me to hear that kind of thing. Because I was always my family moved around like every two years or so we were yanked, and I'm glad about it. So this is not a victim thing, but we were yanked from one school to another, often in the middle of the school year, often I from one country to another.

Declan 27:50

Yeah.

Anja 27:51

Um, and I was always the new kid in in class.

Declan 27:55

Okay.

Anja 27:56

I was always the new kid in class, and it was always kind of like awkward, and you know, my mom used to cut our hair herself and knit these sweaters that were too big. And um, you know, I culturally there was always like this adaptation time that was needed, and we spoke with accents and or didn't speak the language at all. And so no one was ever afraid of me. Yeah, no one was ever afraid to introduce themselves to me. So that is just like so deeply alien to me to hear that that that that somebody would be intimidated, but it's very sweet.

Hard Times That Fueled Growth

Declan 28:37

Well, I rem I mean it's but it's true. Like when I first started in the business, this is a true story. Um, oh uh there were a few things like you know, I had a good friend in uh where I was living at the time, and he was selling his place, but he's like, and I've told Pat Leeper this, it's on the podcast I did with him. His dad said, No, you gotta go with Pat. And you know, he's like, how do I get my foothold in this business? I had somebody else tell me, Yeah, my parents are selling their place in the Berkeley Hills. And I was like, Would you could put him a word for me? And she said to me, They're BB people. Uh-huh. And I was, I didn't even know what that meant. I was like, What BB people? Like, I didn't know BB McRae. Like, this is way she was my idol. Yes. And so with the first time I met BB McRae, I I I was scared to put out my hand because it was shaking. You know what I mean? Like, this is the you know, there are people when you come into the business where you just and you're um I you're you're somebody who was kind of in that realm for me when I first started. And so to be sitting here with you and hear you thank you and hear you just share the real the real growth and that it comes in these darker hours just resonates so strongly with me. And I I feel these stories are important for our peers and our colleagues to understand. Really appreciate it. You just gotta keep pushing, you know. Let's talk about let's talk about um pivoting really quickly, like I do. Let's talk about neural licensee. So here's a story. I was recently telling uh Asan Habib, who's on my team. I was just describing to him the process of presenting an offer like 15 years ago, and how you'd make an appointment, and then you very often you would show up, sometimes at the seller's home, you'd sit at a table. There were maybe other agents outside, you were in line with your paperwork.

Anja 30:23

I remember those days, right? Negotiating sort of in a closet with your buyer.

Declan 30:28

Yes.

Anja 30:28

Could they go up and then going into the conference room? Yeah.

Declan 30:31

Yeah, like it was amazing. And now we can schedule, we can just schedule for our offer to drop or you know, be revealed on disclosures.io any given day. You could write the offer today and click for scheduling next week. So the I feel like this occasionally when I'm reviewing offers uh myself, and I don't review as many as you do, but I I I sometimes see that maybe some you know newer licensees are they're just not aware of a deeper process that they could get into with readying themselves for an offer. And so because you are so frequently on the listing side of the table reviewing often multiple offers, what can we what can we do to talk about this process for newer agents who are right now often writing two, three, four offers for buyers? Like where what can what can they do that would make a difference in the eyes of the listing agent, in your opinion?

Anja 31:31

I think um newer agents make two mistakes most frequently. One of them is um overcommunication, one of them is undercommunication. Wow. Um, overcommunication is usually something that agents do who want to be incredibly smart. They want to be seen as re really doing their diligence and um showing off that they're taking this really seriously and they're reading every page of the disclosure package and they're drilling down on every detail. Applause to that agent as a listing agent, it can be a little overwhelming, and it can also signal the degree of due diligence and and needling that an agent might be demonstrating once they were actually in contract with you. Um, so and the under-communication is an issue because I often get offers from people who I've never heard from, who have signaled no interest, um, who want to hold their cards so closely to their chest that that I get the feeling they're not really serious. So I need a little love, but I don't need too much love. I need I need someone who's smart and who's obviously read the disclosures to signal to me that they're confident in the house. But I don't honestly want to hear too much criticism and doubt because it makes me feel like there may be an issue later on in the game.

Declan 33:00

Right, right.

Making Offers That Get Accepted

Anja 33:01

So um I would say if you want to appeal to a listing agent, keep it good, keep it, keep it not too heavy, keep it light, keep it positive, be clear, and don't be afraid to out yourself early on in the game about the enthusiasm your buyer has, because I as a listing agent value that a lot. Demonstrate respect to the agent in terms of the neatness and the completeness of the offer.

Declan 33:30

Yeah.

Anja 33:30

Because to me, it speaks volumes if people misspell a name or leave out a name. Yeah. That is, if people leave out a name of the seller, like unless there's a really good reason for it, it's sort of like quick and dirty. Like I have a thousand other things to do, and I can't figure out who in the trust is the trustee, so I'm just gonna leave it blank. Like, ask me about it, you know. Uh make a point of having a complete and thorough and well-spelled and well-checked offer, because otherwise I have to go back to you and let you know that this thing is missing, or we don't do this that way in this area. Um, and that's an that's annoying to have to kind of be like a first grade teacher with a red pen in your offer. I want to see a complete offer. Right. Um, and yeah, and um, you know, it obviously helps to know who's committed to writing an offer. So uh just communicate, don't be completely silent. So those would be my pieces of advice in terms of how to appeal to the listing agent. Okay. I I do think it really helps if you're writing an offer uh in a different area than you're familiar with. Familiarize yourself with the ordinances and with the habits. Uh I recently got an offer from a South Bay agent on a on a house who was very surprised that that I didn't um appreciate like numerous contingencies that she had in her offer, and she thought the East Bay, you know, was gonna be easy versus the South Bay where she was working, and it was kind of an insult to our entire market. Like we were just born yesterday in terms of dealing with contingency-free offers or expecting overbids, and she had no idea that the market here was probably almost equally as strong as her market.

Declan 35:21

Okay, I think that's fair. There's a lot of good advice in there. Um, there's nuance in there. I think people should listen to it twice because you're talking about striking just the right tone and not giving any tells that you're gonna be difficult in transaction.

Anja 35:35

And I'm not saying to to not ask important questions. I mean, disclosure is is of utmost importance, and our buyers have to feel satisfied. But there's a point at which it can become not in the service of getting your offer accepted.

Declan 35:52

Right, right. No, I get it. No, there's there's a balance. There's a balance in there of competency versus being a squeaky wheel.

Anja 35:59

And don't overshare the psychology of your buyer with me. Okay. Because I don't really care. If I get one more explanation about somebody's motivations in one direction or another.

Declan 36:12

Uh-huh.

Anja 36:12

I really think like like a brief summary is is what's called for, but I don't need to hear the inner workings of somebody's motivation.

Declan 36:21

Okay.

Anja 36:21

Um or or lack thereof until I see their offer and and and can evaluate whether or not I need to know more.

Declan 36:30

Yeah.

Anja 36:31

So dose your information out in small, you know, chapters. Okay. And and invite the other party to ask questions versus giving them what you assume to be what they want. Yeah.

Declan 36:47

Brilliant.

Anja 36:48

I think we make a lot of assumptions in this business. And uh and maybe we should sometimes just just give out uh invitations for questions rather than shower somebody with too much information.

East Bay Market Read For 2026

Declan 37:01

Um so I'd be a missed opportunity as we begin to wrap up. It'd be a missed opportunity not to just talk a little bit about the market, and I'll just set that up real quick with how I see it right now. Where uh we came out of a year where Oakland Richmond values came down. Berkeley uh is doing you know as strong as it could be. I think value is up to where it was at the top of the 22 market. Um, so it's doing very differently to its neighbors on the north and south. And uh, and and so we have a contraction in inventory, but we're down about a quarter year over year in terms of active inventory, which has made things really weird. Then we're supposed to be on track for lower rates, which we were up to several weeks ago. We were uh below six percent for a conventional 30-year fix. Then all of a sudden, um our representative uh you know government uh decided that they were gonna have some uh miserable thing over in the Middle East, and so now we're at six point, we went over six five today.

Anja 37:58

We're at at the highest we've been in about four years, right?

Declan 38:01

And so, but but we're in a like an unbelievably limited inventory environment, right? So that's yeah, I'm seeing 18 offers in Richmond North and East now. It's just wild. Where do you think it's going?

Anja 38:16

I think it's gonna continue going up, but I do see some stagnation among buyers in some segments of the market. I think the million to two million market right now, this is uh March of 2026, three weeks into the war, there's been a little bit of like uh um stagnation in buyers in that price point. In the two to three plus million dollar price point, I think things are easier right now than in the lower price points because there's so much more volatility and sensitivity, price sensitivity in the lower lower, lower um price points. Um core characteristics still play a huge role. Yeah. Um and no matter how constrained the inventory is, I still think that some incurables make a house sit like they always have.

Declan 39:11

Right.

Anja 39:11

So it's not an automatic time for success. I still think the market is really nuanced and really difficult and kind of um unpredictable of s in sorts.

Declan 39:22

Yeah.

Anja 39:22

But on a whole, uh, I'm feeling really optimistic. Okay. I think the the political uncertainty, which nobody predicted. Um the year started out with the with the bam and uh kind of took a little bit of a hiccup recently. I think it's gonna be forgotten soon enough because people have a low attention span and and and are impatient and things will normalize. People will get used to whatever uncertainty is going on right now, right? Which it's likely to continue for a while. It's not sad. Um just like they got used to the tariffs and they got used to like all the craziness of our administration. But um so, but you know, we still have to weather uh and and deal with these uh week by week fluctuations. In my um market, uh and I deal with people who are sort of in my life stage, I'm seeing crazy amounts of money being spent on smaller, downsizing homes in the neighborhoods people want to live in, in the ones they used to live in because nobody wants to change and lose their friends and move somewhere completely different. I mean, some people do, but yeah, many don't. Right. Um, and so I I'm seeing an incredibly uh big demand for and price increase for lifestyle convenience, and and people will pay all kinds of crazy amounts of money for that. Right. So, and that's that's really driving some of these urban areas to to incredibly high sales prices and unprecedented overbids, and yeah, and one takes off the other. Uh and and I've kind of been on both sides of it where these circles of people that are roaming around looking to downsize or causing each other to have to pay more money on these small houses. Yeah, yeah. And so I think I think it's gonna continue. I mean, you have mountains on one side, you have the water on the other, you have no additional uh ability to build or or create housing, and what we have is beautiful and desirable, and of course it's gonna continue to grow. So I think we we've got a good future ahead of us.

Nature Art And Changing Her Mind

Declan 41:34

Yeah, yeah, it'll keep going like this for a while, just the way it has, really, for a while. And I'm gonna kind of close this up by um thank you for time, of course. And then I wanted to just ask you about where do you get your inspiration from?

Anja 41:48

That's a great question, and it has nothing to do with business. Um I get a lot of my inspiration from nature. Um, I take really early morning walks into the hills in the dark with a headlamp. Nice. And um, this started during COVID. It gives me time to reflect and to to reset my batteries and to uh see how how how nature can teach us everything. I mean, I literally do feel that walking through a forest every day gives me a natural antibiotic or a natural immune system. Yes. Because forests have that. So um it's just magical. Uh I get a lot of my inspiration from art, from artists, from conversation with artists. I take workshops, I uh travel to see exhibits. I'll travel around halfway around the world to see an exhibit by an artist um who I love. Um it's always been kind of the language of our family, and and I draw a lot of inspiration from that. And really, the love of my soul is is art.

Declan 42:47

I have one final question.

Anja 42:48

Yes, Declan. So it never ends.

Declan 42:52

No, it's the last one. It's the last one. It does end.

Anja 42:57

I'm enjoying it. I don't want it to end.

Declan 42:59

I thought this was an interesting question. So the question is what have you changed your mind about recently?

Anja 43:05

That is such an interesting question. Isn't that great? That is like such a good question. What I've more recently changed my mind about is is letting people kind of struggle more on their own and not chasing after them and letting them come to me.

Declan 43:21

Okay.

Anja 43:21

I'm like the kind of person who likes to walk into a party and work the room. And this is the equivalent of like sitting down and letting somebody come to me. Okay. Oh, it's a good analogy. Finding like the benefit of that, like just being quiet instead of demonstrating what I can do or who I am or who I want to meet. And and it's sort of like very uncomfortable for me to just sit down and not insert myself, but it's weirdly powerful.

Declan 43:56

Oh, I really like this. This is a great answer. the way. Oh, I think that is I just think the maturity, the presence of mind to catch yourself, you know, being there is I just think that's brilliant. So I couldn't have asked for a I I'm gonna make this a repeat question at the end of all of my podcasts. So people should beware.

Anja 44:19

Um well I I always feel like um I have like front seats to my own behavior. Like I I I often step outside of myself and watch myself be a certain way and then I like art direct yes like that person into like a better version. And I love having like both being in my brain as well as outside of my brain. Yeah. Um as a way of growing and and becoming like like a a more effective human being.

Declan 44:50

Yeah well I mean that's that's a that's a powerful and brilliant ability when you catch it at some point in life that you can like this constant reevaluation. Yeah well yeah but it's you know being the observer being it's so your fellow German Eckhartole right he I love Eckhart I've heard him speak many times. You and I both I'll tell I can't I'll tell you a funny story. Before he got really big I saw him over in in he got too big. Yeah I'm kind of sick of him now well yeah well I mean it's you know you you can't help but be a little cynical now at this point with the retreats in Hawaii and the whole but I went to see him over in Marin in in the Civic Center two decades ago. And I was I was sat next to this woman and she was very excited I really didn't know who he was uh and uh and it was like supposed to start at seven and she she was like it was like 10 past seven and I was like who is this Axel Rose you know who gets to be this late for and uh so she says to me she said he's hidden the bill he's here I can feel it oh my gosh and I looked at my watch and I said I said he better be I paid $40 you know to see this guy but um but he had this uh in his book he had this uh insight into his own you know his own um revelatory experience where he had just said to himself I I don't like myself and then he's he's like who's this I and myself who are these two people right and that's what kind of right that's where the crack came for him and it changed his life and he woke up feeling very different. But what you're describing is the ability to be you know to be present with ourselves and be the witness observer.

Anja 46:38

And I really think there's a lot of value not to hang on and to allow yourself to to flow through these stages and and to evolve. Yeah it's really like an exciting thing to experience at this stage in life. But it means you have to be willing to stand it you know yeah beautiful on your plow right is there anything and and you know hopefully it doesn't happen too much later in the day but is there anything that I haven't addressed right now while you have the microphone if anybody likes poetry pick up David White's poetry and listen to his podcast listen to him speak he's brilliant and if you're ever in a bad um moment or a self-reflective moment he he will touch you I think like very few poets do thank you so much do you ever read him yeah it's in the trunk of my car so fabulous another love okay thank you Anya thank you so much well maybe we'll chat again at some point in the future you've been you've been fantastic thanks for giving me the opportunity to reflect on myself because sometimes until you speak it you don't really know what you're thinking.

Declan 47:52

Yeah well I'm I I'm grateful that you would choose to do that here. Thank you very much this episode the podcast was edited by me with original music by Chuck Lindo and graphics by LisaMazer LisaMazer.com The podcast is brought to you by the HomeFactor Realtors theHomefactor.com catch up on the latest news from the East Bay market in their weekly substack published every Sunday go to thehomefactor.com to subscribe and if you'd like to reach out to me with suggestions for the show that kind of thing please text me at four one five four four six eight five nine one catch you in the next podcast everybody